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DISH Continues Its Winning Streak, Now Beating Comcast, Time Warner and Charter for the Twelfth Consecutive Year

ENGLEWOOD, CO -- (Marketwire) -- 05/15/12 -- The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has ranked DISH (NASDAQ: DISH) first among the nation's largest satellite and cable providers in the key measures of customer experience, including overall value, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty for 2012.

Released today, this year's survey found DISH beat competing satellite TV provider DIRECTV in overall customer satisfaction, and for the twelfth year running, DISH has surpassed Comcast, Time Warner and Charter in that key criterion. DISH also led the cable and satellite industry in call center satisfaction and, for the second consecutive year, in web site satisfaction. "Customer satisfaction has been a big focus for DISH," said Bernie Han, chief operating officer at DISH. "We're pleased to see that our efforts to deliver a best-in-class service experience are being recognized by our customers, but we know that we have a lot more room to improve."

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States. The national index is updated each quarter and month with new measures for different sectors of the economy. The overall ACSI score factors in scores from more than 225 companies in 47 industries and from government agencies over the previous four quarters. The Index was founded at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and is produced by ACSI LLC. ACSI can be found on the web at www.theacsi.org.

About DISHDISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH), through its subsidiary DISH Network L.L.C., provides approximately 14.071 million satellite TV customers, as of March 31, 2012, with the highest quality programming and technology with the most choices at the best value, including HD Free for Life. Subscribers enjoy the largest high definition lineup with more than 200 national HD channels, the most international channels, and award-winning HD and DVR technology. DISH Network's subsidiary, Blockbuster L.L.C., delivers family entertainment to millions of customers around the world. DISH Network Corporation is a Fortune 200 company. Visit www.dish.com.

So, if this is interpreted correctly, it is assumed that these scores are out of 100. The average, across the industry is 66, and DISH gets a 69. By the way, FIOS gets a 74.

Of course, if these scores were based on letter grades:

A 90 - 100B 80 - 89C 70 - 79D 60 - 69F Below 60

FIOS Gets a C and DISH, and most others, gets a D, as does the Subscription Television Industry. And Charter gets an F.

So, is this really something be truly proud of? Being the top of mediocre? (sarcasm)

Personally, I never had any issues with DISH, except when it came to the weird way they do billing, especially when you purchase equipment or buy something like the College Football Package. The way they credit/debit makes it next to impossible to reconcile your bill. The only other beef, is getting someone in India or the Philippines that you can't understand; but, using online chat took care of these issues.

Overall I would give them somthing of a score og 80. Over 14 years, I think I have less than 12 hours of outages total; including bad weather; 5 9s in computer uptime lingo. Much better than Qwest (now CenturyLink) DSL or COMCAST Internet. Solid equipment. Ease of replacing equipment. And, very satitified with various installers for upgrades. Maybe, we are fortunate in Northern Colorado to not have some of the horror stories I see on this blog. But, then again, it is not to difficult to drive down to DISH headquarters around here ither (about 50 or so miles) and take care of any issue that may come up.

So, despite channels being pulled, over disputes, or providers playing hardball (Disney, Rainbow, TiVo), for the most part, DISH has been a positive experience.

Now, I wish the consolidated media industry would offer more variety, but that is another story. VIacom: Many hours of CSI variants, NBC Universal - Many variants of Law & Order, et. al.. But, the worse is 6 - 8 hour blocks of the same show. Documentary channels (History, H2, Discovery Networks, National Geographic, etc. filling their schedules with reality programming which really is losly based on the subject medium of the particular channel; History wins teh award to becoming almost a 24 hour reality show channel and almost no history) One would think with over 60 years of television that there would be more variety than what there actually is streamed. This results, sometimes in, 200+ channels and nothing worth watching.

The irony is they all get a failing grade. Dish's F is 1 point higher than DirecTV's. And the one with the highest failing grade has bragging rights. I have to drop Dish next month and go with Charter, which is the worst of all, just to get AMC back and keep BBCA (sorry, I digress). Anyway, it's a crappy situation all the way around.

The numbers don't seem good, even in a time of poor economy and perhaps more general discontent... but they seem not good across the board for all the companies.

It's true that you wouldn't think it a bragging point to be the least worst But you can be sure any company atop this list would brag, so let Dish have their moment in the sun this year.

I honestly don't even know how they objectively measure customer satisfaction anyway. I mean, look at Amazon for customer reviews and really read the comments. Many (if not most) negative reviews are from customers who ordered the wrong product, don't know how to properly use the product, or have an agenda... I've learned to usually not trust customer feedback that I can't independently verify, which means I don't usually trust reviews online.

Whenever you have a bad experience with a company or brand that company or brand goes on your S--- list. It's human nature. I like Ford you like Chevy, I like Honda you like Toyota. In reality they are all pretty much the same.

So, is this really something be truly proud of? Being the top of mediocre? (sarcasm)

Personally, I never had any issues with DISH, except when it came to the weird way they do billing, especially when you purchase equipment or buy something like the College Football Package. The way they credit/debit makes it next to impossible to reconcile your bill. The only other beef, is getting someone in India or the Philippines that you can't understand; but, using online chat took care of these issues.

The irony is they all get a failing grade. Dish's F is 1 point higher than DirecTV's. And the one with the highest failing grade has bragging rights. I have to drop Dish next month and go with Charter, which is the worst of all, just to get AMC back and keep BBCA (sorry, I digress). Anyway, it's a crappy situation all the way around.

Think good thoughts, It may not go. I'm guessing 80% go 20% stays.

Not a biggie to me since I watch nothing on those channels. However if you do go are you going to get hit with a early termination fee?

wonder if they surveyed any sports fans??...it might of come up dead last instead of mediocre..

Good point. And kudos goes to Verizon's Fios for having bragging and full disclosure advertising rights in this latest ACSI survey.

My local cable provider recently lit up over 50+ music channels with static HD album art so they could boast that they now have over 100 HD channels. Spin is spin and in the video subscription industry it's very prevalent and they all do it to some degree. When reading Dish carefully written press release most would assume Dish was rated #1.

My main concern about this survey would be the criteria used to pick the respondents. When measuring the customer satisfaction metrics give me a survey from people with their respective companies latest and greatest whole home hardware. But hey, it is what it is , it's just a survey.

Whenever you have a bad experience with a company or brand that company or brand goes on your S--- list. It's human nature. I like Ford you like Chevy, I like Honda you like Toyota. In reality they are all pretty much the same.

I disagree to a point. I think it depends on the industry and the companies involved.

Apple is no where near the same as Google in the tablet/smart phone OS industries. They work completely differently and offer different things to their customers.

Google's Android is an open source operating system that anyone can download the SDK for and start developing apps, place them up for sale and download with ease and no oversight. It's a very open platform. Apple on the other hand has been very successful at building a walled garden around their ipad/iphone and have complete control over who can develop for it, what they can develop, what they can charge, etc (Apple doesn't have any support at all for Flash for instance).

Two companies in the same industry with completely different philosophies, offering very different end user experiences. They aren't even close to being pretty much the same.

I disagree to a point. I think it depends on the industry and the companies involved.

Apple is no where near the same as Google in the tablet/smart phone OS industries. They work completely differently and offer different things to their customers.

Google's Android is an open source operating system that anyone can download the SDK for and start developing apps, place them up for sale and download with ease and no oversight. It's a very open platform. Apple on the other hand has been very successful at building a walled garden around their ipad/iphone and have complete control over who can develop for it, what they can develop, what they can charge, etc (Apple doesn't have any support at all for Flash for instance).

Two companies in the same industry with completely different philosophies, offering very different end user experiences. They aren't even close to being pretty much the same.

OTOH Android being more open has caused problems with malware on them.

This is one case where apples walled garden might, only might be better.